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The Onion starts a 24-hour fake news network - VIDEO
Anyone who's heard The Onion Radio News knows that The Onion's ingenious brand of fake print news doesn't always translate well to a With the folks at The Onion starting a 24-hour online fake news network called The Onion News Network, or ONN, the same problem occurs. The Onion's president, Sean Mills, told Variety, with tongue apparently planted firmly in cheek, that ONN is not trying to be like The Daily Show or "Weekend Update" on SNL. "Those are parody shows, and this is serious news," said Mills. "There's no studio audience, and no one's in on the joke. What we are trying to create is a broadcast-quality newscast on the Internet."
Uh, sure, Sean. Variety, for some reason, reports that statement without further comment. But one look at the videos displayed there, shows that the stories are fully scripted and structured more like Mad TV sketches than real news reports.
Not that the reports aren't funny. In the piece attached below, a Lucent Technologies executive is displaced by an undocumented worker. Why? Because he was willing to work for much less than the person who was displaced: $600,000 per year instead of $800,000.
According to the article, The Onion is planning on making the videos available on their site as well as on YouTube, Joost and MySpace. It will also make the videos available to TiVo users. All advertising revenue will be split with the provider. Clips will also be made available on iTunes. I wish them luck, because more comedy on the web is always a good thing.
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